The Pirate Planet

Part One

[Bridge]

(Above the adobe town sits an incongruous sleek, rounded metal structure, half inside the top of the mountain. This area is big, with the Captain's chair raised above the rest of the place where crewmembers attend to various computer banks.)

CAPTAIN: Mister Fibuli! Mister Fibuli! By all the x-ray storms of Vega, where is that nincompoop?
TANNOY: Calling Mister Fibuli. Mister Fibuli required on the bridge immediately.
CAPTAIN: Moons of madness, why am I encumbered with incompetents?

(A bespectacled man in an olive green uniform runs in, collecting pieces of paper from grey-suited minions on the way.)

FIBULI: Captain, sir.
CAPTAIN: Your report, Mister Fibuli.
FIBULI: Yes, sir. I have it.
CAPTAIN: Is thirty seconds late.
FIBULI: Yes, sir.
CAPTAIN: My qualities are many, Mister Fibuli.
FIBULI: Oh, yes, sir. I
CAPTAIN: But an infinite capacity for patience is not amongst them.

(A metal construct appears to turn and look at Fibuli, who becomes even more nervous and backs away.)

FIBULI: I apologise most abjectly, Captain, but I do have good news, sir.

(The Captain strokes the metal object.)

CAPTAIN: I hope you do.
FIBULI: Well, sir, all deposits of the minerals voolium, galdrium and assetenite four five five have now been mines, processed and stored, sir. Good quantities of aluminas, the usual, sir. Carbon isotopes, etcetera, etcetera. And the residue has been processed
CAPTAIN: In the normal way.
FIBULI: Way. Here is a list of the minerals, sir.

(The metal thing is now sitting on the Captain's right shoulder, like a parrot on a pirate.)

CAPTAIN: Pah! Baubles. Baubles! Dross and baubles! We must find vasilium. We must find madranite one five.
FIBULI: Well, sir, we have located a new source.
CAPTAIN: Excellent. Excellent.
FIBULI: That's what caused the delay, Captain. We wanted to be absolutely certain. It's in an unexpected sector. Here, let me show you this chart.

(The Captain glances at the chart and throws it aside.)

CAPTAIN: We'll mine it. Make immediate preparations.
FIBULI: Well, there is something rather curious, Captain. Here is a detailed description of the sector.
CAPTAIN: I said we'll mine it, Mister Fibuli!
FIBULI: But sir
CAPTAIN: Make immediate preparations now or I'll have your bones bleached. Is that clear?
FIBULI: Aye, aye, Captain. Thank you, sir.

(Fibuli runs out. The Captain turns and we get our first proper view of the cybernetically enhanced humanoid. Most of his left side has been replaced - eye and arm at least - and he has a microphone permanently in front of his mouth. He makes a broadcast.)

CAPTAIN: Hear this. Now hear this. This is your Captain speaking.

[Zanak city]

CAPTAIN [OC]: Citizens, prepare yourselves. Watch for the omens. I declare a new golden age of prosperity for all.
CITIZENS: Hooray!
CAPTAIN [OC]: I say again, I declare the dawning of a new golden age of prosperity.
CITIZENS: Hooray!
CAPTAIN: Watch for the omens.

[Mentiad lair]

(In a dark place, a circle of haggard looking people in saffron robes convenes and watches a young man in the city by some mystic means.)

CAPTAIN [OC]: The mines will once again be full of riches.
CITIZENS: Hooray.
CAPTAIN [OC]: Richer jewels.
CITIZENS: Hooray!
CAPTAIN: Finer clothes.
CITIZENS: Hooray!
CAPTAIN: Food in greater abundance.
CITIZENS: Hooray!

(The young man doesn't join in with the cheers, and quietly backs away through the crowds.)

CAPTAIN: Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice will be yours.
CITIZENS: Hooray!

(The image of the young man resolves onto the wall.)

MENTIAD: Brothers, are we agreed?
BROTHERS: Oh yes.
MENTIAD: We have found another. Brothers, the days grow dark. The time of evil is once more come. We must prepare.
BROTHERS: We must prepare.

[TARDIS kitchen]

DOCTOR: There you are, K9. The first segment of the Key to Time. A job well done.

(The Doctor polishes the segment with a yellow duster.)

K9: Correction, master. A job well done to the extent of naught point one six six six six six
DOCTOR: Yes, yes, yes. The others will be easy. A piece of cake.
K9: Piece of cake, master?
DOCTOR: Mmm.

(The Doctor opens the door to a very small refrigerator.)

K9: Piece of cake. Radial segment of baked confection. Coefficient and relevance to the Key of Time, zero.
DOCTOR: That's what I said, K9. Piece of cake.

(The Doctor appears to put the segment into a small container, and into the fridge.)

[TARDIS]

(The Doctor enters the console room, followed by K9. Romana is reading a large tome which is resting on a church Eagle lectern.)

DOCTOR: Good morrow, Romana. That looks interesting.
ROMANA: Good morning, Doctor.
DOCTOR: What are you reading?
ROMANA: Oh, just familiarising myself with the technical details of this capsule.
DOCTOR: Capsule? What kind of a word is that? If you mean TARDIS, why don't you say TARDIS?
ROMANA: The Type Forty capsule wasn't on the main syllabus, you see.
DOCTOR: Not on the syllabus. I don't know what the Academy's coming to these days.
ROMANA: Veteran and vintage vehicles was an optional extra. I preferred something more interesting.
DOCTOR: Really? Like what?
ROMANA: Oh, the lifecycle of the Gallifreyan flutterwing.
DOCTOR: Now you're being frivolous.
ROMANA: I wouldn't dream of it.

(The Doctor inserts the Key tracer into its socket.)

DOCTOR: Oh, no!
ROMANA: What?
DOCTOR: How paralysingly dull, boring and tedious.
ROMANA: Oh, our next destination?
DOCTOR: Yes. Calufrax.
ROMANA: Calufrax?
DOCTOR: Yes. Mean little planet. Still. Listen, why don't you watch while I set the coordinate on this vintage veteran of mine? Maybe you'll learn something.
ROMANA: Right. Er, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Hmm?
ROMANA: What about the synchronic feedback checking circuit?
DOCTOR: What about it?
ROMANA: Aren't you going to set it?
DOCTOR: No, no, no. I never bother about that. Complete waste of time.
ROMANA: Oh. According to the manual, it's essential.
DOCTOR: Listen, have you any idea how long I've been operating this TARDIS?
ROMANA: Five hundred and twenty three years.
DOCTOR: Right! Is it really that long? My, how time flies.
ROMANA: Hasn't it. And the multiloop stabiliser?
DOCTOR: What?
ROMANA: Multiloop stabiliser. It says here, on any capsule it will be found impossible to effect a smooth materialisation without first activating the multiloop stabiliser.
DOCTOR: Oh. Absolute rubbish.

(The Doctor tears that page out of the instruction tome.)

DOCTOR: Now, I'll show you a really smooth materialisation without a multiloop anything. Watch this. Calufrax, here we come.

(The TARDIS goes shimmery.)

ROMANA: What's happening?
DOCTOR: She won't materialise.
K9: Danger, master, danger.
DOCTOR: Of course, K9, of course. Ow!

(The Doctor hits his face against the edge of the console. This was supposed to explain Tom's split lip during the Ribos Operation when that was filmed second, but as it was shown first it makes no sense. Cheers, Douglas.)

ROMANA: Something wrong?

(The Doctor holds his hand over his mouth.)

DOCTOR: No, no, no, no. Nothing at all.

[Bridge]

(Alarms are blaring all over the place.)

CAPTAIN: Imbeciles! Fools! Thrice worse than incompetent idiots! What pernicious injury have you inflicted on my precious engines! Mister Fibuli!
FIBULI: Captain.
CAPTAIN: Are you trying to scuttle this planet?
FIBULI: No, sir. I've run a quick inspection, sir, and the, er, the actual damage isn't as bad as we
CAPTAIN: Do not trifle with me, Mister Fibuli. What happened?
FIBULI: As far as we can tell, sir, some freak local disturbance, probably electromagnetic.
CAPTAIN: What?
FIBULI: It passed very quickly.
CAPTAIN: Idle prattlings, Mister Fibuli. I will know the truth!

(The Captain inserts his cybernetic hand into control panel.)

CAPTAIN: Oscilloscope readings. There, Mister Fibuli, there's your local electromagnetic disturbance. What do you make of those readings?
FIBULI: That's extraordinary.
CAPTAIN: See? For ten seconds the entire fabric of the space time continuum was ripped apart. Panaccenteration readings, critical overload, every system jammed solid. Gravity dilation readings. There, Mister Fibuli. Can you explain those figures?
FIBULI: Not off the top of my head, sir.
CAPTAIN: No? And why not? Because for ten seconds the whole infrastructure of quantum physics was in retreat. Find out what happened, Mister Fibuli, and find out fast, or by all the fires of night, I'll have that skull off you!

[TARDIS]

DOCTOR: Not so. I am perfectly capable of admitting when I am wrong.
ROMANA: Oh.
DOCTOR: Yes. Only this time I wasn't. There was definitely something out there jamming our materialisation field.
ROMANA: Oh, that's what it was.
DOCTOR: Yes. Yes, that's what it was. Yes. Whatever it was, it wasn't a multiloop whatsit or anything else to do with that manual.
ROMANA: No, of course not. May I try?
DOCTOR: What, by the book?
ROMANA: Yes.
DOCTOR: Yes, all right, all right. You do it your way.
ROMANA: Thank you, Doctor.
DOCTOR: You'll see. There's definitely something out there jamming our materialisation field.
ROMANA: Right. Synchronic feedback.
DOCTOR: Won't make a scrap of difference.
ROMANA: We'll see. Multiloop stabiliser.

(The Doctor goes to crouch down by K9, hands over his ears.)

DOCTOR: Look out, K9. Hold on.
ROMANA: Now.

(The TARDIS parks herself neatly under an archway in the adobe city.)

ROMANA: Well?
DOCTOR: Good.
ROMANA: Thank you, Doctor.
DOCTOR: That was very, very good. Wasn't that good, K9?
K9: Very, very, very good, master.
DOCTOR: Oh, terribly good. Listen, I think she's going to be all right. Very all right.
K9: Very, very all right.
ROMANA: Shall we have a look at Calufrax now?
DOCTOR: Oh, all right then. Let's get it over with. Horrible place. Cold, wet, icy. No life of any sort. Boring.

(Not an accurate description of what Romana is watching on the scanner.)

ROMANA: It looks very pleasant to me.
DOCTOR: What? Calufrax? You have made an enormous mistake. You've probably, you've probably missed it by a couple of million light years!

(K9 is spinning like a compass needle.)

DOCTOR: I wonder what's biting him?

[Mentiad lair]

(The brothers are circling as something flickers in the air above them.)

BROTHERS: Life force dying. Life force dying.

(The young man is lying on his bed, in agony.)

BROTHERS: Life force dying. Life force dying. Life force dying. Life force dying. Life force dying. Life force dying!

[Pralix's bedroom]

(The young man's sister and grandfather watch anxiously.)

BALATON: Calm yourself, Pralix. You must calm yourself.
MULA: He's much worse than last time, Grandfather. Pralix, can't you hear us? Tell us what's wrong.
BALATON: It is a mistake to ask too many questions.
MULA: That's your answer to everything, isn't it?
BALATON: I have no need for answers, for all I ask is a quiet life. Pralix, Pralix, you must calm yourself. Calm yourself.

[TARDIS]

DOCTOR: That's strange.
ROMANA: Well?
DOCTOR: Can't be right. It is right. But it can't be, can it?
ROMANA: Have you decided where we are, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Well, according to these space time coordinates, we have arrived at precisely the right point in space at precisely the right time.
ROMANA: Yes, I know.
DOCTOR: But to the wrong planet.
ROMANA: What?
DOCTOR: This isn't Calufrax.
ROMANA: Then where are we?
DOCTOR: I haven't got the faintest idea. All I do know is that this planet wasn't here when I tried to land.

[Balaton's home]

(Pralix is screaming in his bedroom cum alcove.)

BALATON: People will hear. Oh dear, I'm sure people can hear.
MULA: Grandfather, Pralix is very ill and all you can think about is what will happen if the neighbours hear.
BALATON: You know very well what will happen.
MULA: Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
BALATON: Oh, Mula, don't spoil everything by asking so many questions. I think I'm going to lose one grandchild already. Please don't let it be both of you. Just settle down and enjoy what life gives you so freely.
MULA: Listen, someone's coming.
BALATON: Quickly, the curtains.

(Mula goes into Pralix's bedroom and draws the flimsy curtains across the entrance. A man enters through the bead curtain at the main door.)

KIMUS: Balaton?
MULA: Kimus! Thank goodness it's only you.
KIMUS: Only me? What's wrong with him?

(Mula hugs Kimus.)

MULA: We thought that
KIMUS: What?
MULA: Never mind.

(Pralix calls out, delirious.)

KIMUS: Pralix.
PRALIX [OC]: Life force is dying. Life force dying. Life force dying!

[Pralix's bedroom]

KIMUS: Again?

[Mentiad's lair]

(The image on the wall switches from Pralix to the Doctor leaving the TARDIS.)

MENTIAD: We have an intruder. And wait, there is another. We must act. Act at once.

[Zanak city]

(The tracer is ticking.)

ROMANA: Uninhabited, ice-coated planet?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: Well, we've certainly come to the right place. The signal's coming from everywhere.
DOCTOR: Never trust gimmicky gadgets.
K9: Sentient life form approaching.
ROMANA: What?
DOCTOR: It's all right. It just means someone's coming.
ROMANA: I know what it means. Excuse me.
DOCTOR: No, no, excuse me. I'll do it.

(Two citizens enter the plaza.)

DOCTOR: Excuse me. Would you take me to your leader? What we'd like to know, you see, is what planet?

(And walk out, totally ignoring him. Romana tucks the tracer up the sleeve of her pink blouse. More people enter the plaza.)

DOCTOR: Halt! What we

(And walk straight past as if he is invisible.)

DOCTOR: You're not doing very well, K9.
K9: Master?
DOCTOR: No.
K9: Suggestion, master.
DOCTOR: What?
K9: Suggest you allow mistress to make contact.
DOCTOR: Nonsense! Making contact with an alien race is an immensely skilled and delicate operation. It calls for tact and experience. What would she know about it?

(A young man enters the plaza.)

ROMANA: Hello. Excuse me.
MAN: Yes?
K9: She is prettier than you, master.
DOCTOR: Is she? What's that got to do with it.
MAN: It's a new golden age, you see. A golden age of prosperity. I must say, I still get very excited about it all. I know we have them rather often now, but that's because of the Captain's great goodness, you see.
DOCTOR: Excuse me.
ROMANA: Just a minute. The Captain?
MAN: Oh, yes. It's the Captain who does it all for us, and it really was spectacular this time. The omens. The skies shook with lightning. We are going to be very rich. Very, very rich.
ROMANA: What, just like that? Because of lights in the sky?
MAN: Oh, yes. That's the way it always happens. Here, have some diamonds. And yes, I've got a ruby. Suit a pretty girl like you.
ROMANA: Oh! Thank you very much.
DOCTOR: Excuse me.
ROMANA: Would you like some jelly babies?
DOCTOR: Thank you very much. Excuse me.
MAN: What are they?
DOCTOR: Sweets. You eat them. Go on.
MAN: Oh, thank you. (he takes four) Well, I'll be late for the feasts. Nice to meet you. Watch out for the Mentiads.
ROMANA: The who?

(But the man has left.)

DOCTOR: Er, excuse me! What I'd like to know. Where did you get those jelly babies?
ROMANA: Same place you get them.
DOCTOR: Where?
ROMANA: Your pocket.
DOCTOR: Look, good looks are no substitute for a sound character. Did he say anything about omens?
ROMANA: Omens in the sky.
DOCTOR: Really?

(A little way away, a totally black-clad guard accosts the man as he eats the jelly babies.)

GUARD: Where did you get those?
MAN: Er, back there, sir.
DOCTOR: I think that these stones are genuine. What do you think, K9?
K9: Affirmative, master. The clear ones are the diamonds and the red ones are the rubies.
DOCTOR: Oh, thank you very much. And what colour are the amethysts?
K9: Purple, master.
DOCTOR: Affirmative.

(Romana is surveying the sky with the Doctor's telescope. The Doctor spots a lot of raw gemstones lying on the ground nearby.)

DOCTOR: Extraordinary. The place is littered with them. Diamonds, Andromedan bloodstones, gravel, more diamonds. Don't they have street sweepers here?
ROMANA: Well, perhaps these stones aren't valuable here, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Diamonds and rubies not valuable?
ROMANA: What's this?
K9: Oolian, mistress.
ROMANA: Oolian?
DOCTOR: Oolian?
K9: Affirmative.

(Romana picks up a large chunk of green.)

DOCTOR: Oolian? Now that is rare. That's one of the most precious stones in the galaxy. It only occurs naturally in two places that I know of. Qualactin and Bandraginus Five. Bandraginus Five? Where have I heard that mentioned recently?
ROMANA: It's beautiful.
DOCTOR: Yeah, hold it up to the light. People have murdered for that beauty, ravaged empires for it, and lying in the streets exactly where I wasn't expecting to find it. I wonder where Calufrax got to?

[Balaton's home]

MULA: Poor Pralix. Why? What does it all mean?
BALATON: Why should it mean anything? It's just the way life is. Accept it.
KIMUS: Oh yes, we can have anything we want, can't we, apart from the freedom to think for ourselves. I'd like to know what I'm accepting, old man.

[Pralix' bedroom]

BALATON: I remember when I was a lad. Now things were very different then. You think you have no freedom now? You ought to have been here under old Queen Xanxia.
MULA: Shush, both of you. Think of poor Pralix. He must have quietness.
KIMUS: Why? We've all been quiet for too long, and for what?

[Balaton's home]

KIMUS: Pretty clothes? Pockets full of useless trinkets? That isn't what life ought to be about.

(Kimus takes Mula's hand.)

BALATON: Kimus, you are a dangerous fool. Don't listen to him, Mula. If you love your brother, you must shelter him, hide him, protect him from the Mentiads. Remember what happened to your father.
MULA: My father didn't fall into the hands of the Mentiads.
BALATON: No.
MULA: He was shot by the Captain's guards.
BALATON: To save him from the Mentiads. At least he died a clean death. It was an act of mercy by the Captain.
KIMUS: Oh well, thank you, O merciful Captain, for so kindly having Mula's father shot down in the street like a dog.
BALATON: Listen, Kimus, let me tell you this. I would cheerfully strangle Pralix with my own hands to save him from those, those

[Mentiad lair]

MENTIAD: Brothers, the Vigil of Evil is accomplished. The one called Pralix must be harvested. The Time of Knowing shall be soon, and fast upon that shall follow the Time of Vengeance. Vengeance for the crimes of Zanak!
BROTHERS: Vengeance for the crimes of Zanak.

(They all file out.)

[Zanak city]

(The Doctor speaks to a man approaching them.)

DOCTOR: Excuse me, have you seen Calufrax?

(The man turns and runs.)

DOCTOR: It's sort of planet, about fourteen thousand kilometres across, oblate spheroid.

(He tries again with another couple who enter the plaza.)

DOCTOR: Excuse me, I'm looking for a planet called Calufrax.

(They run, too.)

DOCTOR: It's about fourteen thousand kilometres across, it's an oblate spheroid and it's covered in ice. Excuse me, excuse me. Has anybody seen a planet called Calufrax? Funny, nobody's seen it.
PRALIX [OC]: The life force is dead! The life force is dead!
DOCTOR: Well, someone's around, anyway.
PRALIX [OC]: We're all murderers! Murderers!
ROMANA: It came from over there.
DOCTOR: Over there? You stay here. I'll go and see.

(Meanwhile, the Mentiads walk over the grassy hills towards the city.)

[Pralix's bedroom]

(Kimus and Mula are trying to hold Pralix down as he thrashes about on his bed.)

BALATON: We're done for! They must be nearly here! They'll take him as they tried to take your father!
MULA: We must hide him.
KIMUS: We can't hide him forever.

[Balaton's home]

(The doorbell rings. It's the Doctor shaking a small brass bell.)

DOCTOR: Excuse me, are you sure this planet's meant to be here?

[Zanak city]

(Out in the plaza, Romana is using the telescope to get a better look at the metal building up above them. A guard walks up to her and takes it away.)

GUARD: This is a forbidden object.
ROMANA: Why?
GUARD: That is a forbidden question. You are a stranger?
ROMANA: Well, yes.
GUARD: Strangers are forbidden.
ROMANA: I did come with the Doctor.
GUARD: Who is
ROMANA: Ah, now, don't tell me. Doctors are forbidden as well.
GUARD: You are under arrest. Come.
ROMANA: No, K9, you mustn't.
GUARD: What did you say?
ROMANA: What I said was, no K9, you mustn't (pause) fetch the Doctor.
GUARD: You're mad. Move.

(The guard takes Romana away. K9 trundles off.)

[Bridge]

CAPTAIN: We're surrounded by incompetents, you and I. Incompetents and fools. You're my only true friend. Never mind. Not long now. Not long now before it's finished and we'll be free.
FIBULI: Captain! Captain, sir.
CAPTAIN: Speak!
FIBULI: The Mentiads are marching, sir.
CAPTAIN: Vultures of death! Ghouls!
FIBULI: They must have located another rogue telepath. Channel twenty one, sir. Sector five.

(The Captain calls up the location on the circular viewscreen.)

CAPTAIN: Sector five. The Mentiads are heading towards sector five. The telepath must not be taken. Find him and destroy him, or by all the suns that blaze, I'll tear you apart, molecule from molecule.

(Somewhere around Ebbw Vale, I think, a group of guards take cover by a small stream as the Mentiads approach. They open fire to no effect, as if the telepaths have a forcefield around them. One guard tried to fire at them head on, and gets knocked down psychically. The Captain sees all this.)

CAPTAIN: Idiot! Brainless fool! All guards, the Mentiads are heading towards sector six. Find the telepath. Find him and destroy him!

[Balaton's home]

(Pralix has been moved to a recliner in the main room. The Doctor pinches the boy's nose then listens to his head.)

DOCTOR: He's in a state of shock.
MULA: He does this every time the Captain announces a new golden age of prosperity.
DOCTOR: What, every time?
MULA: Well, the last two or three times, yes.
DOCTOR: Hmm. Tell me about this Captain. Pleasant sort of chap, is he?
MULA We've never seen him.
BALATON: But he is great and good. He looks after us and makes us rich.
KIMUS: Huh. He makes us his fools.
DOCTOR: Really? That's a very interesting observation.
PRALIX: The Mentiads!
DOCTOR: Mentiads? I've heard that somewhere before.

[Bridge]

CAPTAIN: Find him! Find him! Find him and destroy him! Search sector six.
FIBULI: Er, seven.
CAPTAIN: Search sector seven.

(The viewscreen picks up K9.)

CAPTAIN: What the planet's bane is that?

(The Captain's electronic parrot is interested. K9 goes through a doorway.)

CAPTAIN: Search that house.

[Balaton's home]

K9: Master.
BALATON: Save us! Captain, save us!
KIMUS: What is it?
DOCTOR: No, no, no, it's all right. It's all right, it's a friend of mine. Aren't you a friend of mine, K9?
K9: Affirmative, master. Friend.
DOCTOR: Now then, tell me about the Mentiads.
BALATON: They are evil zombies. They have terrible powers.
K9: Master.
PRALIX: Mentiads! They're coming.
K9: Mistress is in danger.
DOCTOR: Pralix, what do the Mentiads want of you? What is it?
MULA: Kimus! Kimus!

(Two guards enter.)

GUARD: That's him. Shoot!

(So K9 shoots them.)

DOCTOR: How long have you stunned them for, K9?
K9: Indefinitely, master.
DOCTOR: Good, good. Evil zombies? Terrible powers?
KIMUS: They're not Mentiads. They were the Captain's guards.
PRALIX: The Mentiads!
DOCTOR: Pralix. Pralix, what is it?
BALATON: We must hide him. We must hide him. They must be nearly here. Oh, the Captain's way was better.
MULA: Listen, they're coming. There's no way we can hide him.
KIMUS: No, you're cowards, both of you. We must fight.
DOCTOR: Pralix, can you hear my voice?
KIMUS: We're not going to be pampered frightened vegetables any more. We've got friends now.
DOCTOR: Pralix. Pralix, can you hear my voice? What is it? Hello? Hello. Are you by any chance the Mentiads? Well, it's just that you look like Mentiads to me.

(The Mentiads turn their gazes on the Doctor. A golden light envelopes him. He stiffens and falls back against the wall. K9's laser has no effect.)

DOCTOR: You see, what I thought was that er

(The Mentiads give him another Look and he slumps to the floor.)

Part Two

[Bridge]

(The Captain, with the robot parrot on his shoulder, has lined up his crew for a dressing down. A young woman watches from the side.)

CAPTAIN: Gentlemen, the rogue telepath has not been destroyed. I ordered that he should be so. He's been allowed to fall into the hands of the Mentiads. I ordered that he should not be so allowed. Failure is something I find very hard to come to terms with. Right, Mister Fibuli?
FIBULI: Oh yes, sir. Very true, sir.
CAPTAIN: By all the flaming moons of Heretes, not two hours since you very nearly blew up every engine in this mountain!
FIBULI: Yes, sir, but the cause was external. You said that yourself. Something extraordinary happened to the whole fabric of the space time continuum at that moment.
CAPTAIN: Have you discovered the cause of that yet?
FIBULI: Not yet, sir. Busy working on it, sir.
CAPTAIN: Then you have failed to find it, Mister Fibuli.

(The young woman walks over to the Captain.)

CAPTAIN: Failed, failed, failed! When someone fails me, someone dies!

(The robot parrot takes off, and Fibuli closes his eyes. But it is another crewman who is killed by the mechanical.)

CAPTAIN: I hope you find the cause very soon, Mister Fibuli. I hope you will not fail me again.

[Balaton's home]

(The Doctor is now lying on the recliner, and groaning as he wakes.)

KIMUS: Doctor.
DOCTOR: Shush.
K9: Master.
DOCTOR: What hit me?
KIMUS: The Mentiads did something. I don't know what I can tell you.
DOCTOR: I wasn't asking you. What hit me, K9?
K9: A gestalt generated psychokinetic blast, master, on a wavelength of three three eight point seven nine micropars with oka-interference patterns reaching a peak power level of five three four seven point two on the Vantalla psychoscale.
DOCTOR: Five four three point seven two?
K9: Affirmative, master.
DOCTOR: (to camera) That's what I thought.

(Balaton is distraught, sitting on Pralix's bed.)

BALATON: Pralix has gone. The Mentiads have taken him.
DOCTOR: Don't worry, don't worry, I'll find him.
KIMUS: That's if he's still alive.
DOCTOR: Do you know where the Mentiads live?
KIMUS: No. They just arrive in the city and then depart. They're all too scared to follow them.
DOCTOR: They? Who's they?
KIMUS: The cowards who live in this city.
DOCTOR: You're not frightened?
KIMUS: No.
DOCTOR: You just didn't get round to it, is that it?
KIMUS: I mean I will follow them.
DOCTOR: So will I.
MULA: And so will I.
BALATON: No, Mula. Haven't we lost enough already?
K9: Master?
DOCTOR: Not now, K9, not now. Now, K9, can you track the Mentiads by their psychospore?
K9: Affirmative, master. Psychokinetic energy on that level leaves considerable disturbance in the ether.
DOCTOR: Excellent, excellent. Right, who's coming? Kimus? Mula? Balaton?
BALATON: No, I don't want any part of this madness. I don't want to hear Mentiads, guards, madness.
DOCTOR: All right, all right. Romana? Romana? Where's Romana?
K9: She has been arrested, master.
DOCTOR: What?
K9: She sent me to inform you.
DOCTOR: Why didn't you?
K9: I made four attempts, master, but you would not allow me to tell you, master.
DOCTOR: It just means two rescue attempts. After all, Romana has the tracer, you see. Now, where will they have taken her?
MULA: To the Bridge.
KIMUS: No one ever comes back from the Bridge.
MULA: Except the guards.
DOCTOR: No one?

[Zanak city]

(The guards take Romana to an aircar parked in a plaza. It looks like a speedboat fitted with stabilisers so it can sit on the ground easily.)

GUARD: Get in.
ROMANA: I shall take that as an invitation.

(Romana pushes the guard's weapon down and hands him the telescope.)

ROMANA: Thank you. Will you drive? I assume you know where we're going.

[Balaton's home]

(The Doctor holds up a large coin.)

DOCTOR: Right. Heads we go after Romana first, tails we go after Pralix first, hmm?

(Mula nods. The Doctor throws the coin into the air. They stare up for about five seconds then the Doctor catches it again.)

MULA: Tails.
DOCTOR: Heads.

(The Doctor uncovers the coin. It is heads.)

MULA: How can you take such a dangerous decision like that, just leaving it to chance.

(It's a double headed coin.)

DOCTOR: Two kings on Aldebaran Three.
MULA: That's not fair.
DOCTOR: Oh yes, it is. If my guess is correct, Romana's in much greater danger than Pralix. Now, how do we get to this Bridge?
MULA: I'm not going there. I'm going after Pralix.
DOCTOR: But Mula
MULA: I'll find my own way!

(Mula runs outside. Kimus has found a weapon hidden in Pralix's bedroom.)

KIMUS: Oh, it's no use once she's made up her mind. I'll have to go after her myself.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, you stay here.
KIMUS: But Mula needs me.
DOCTOR: I need you here. It'll be all right. K9?
K9: Master.
DOCTOR: I'm putting Mula in your charge. Take her to the Mentiads but look after her. Is that clearly understood?
K9: Affirmative, master.
DOCTOR: Off you go. We'll follow along later.

[Aircar]

ROMANA: I had an aircar rather like this once. It was a present for my seventieth birthday. Did you know that if you realign the magnetic vectors and fit a polarity oscillator, you get twice the speed for half the energy.

[Zanak city]

KIMUS: That's the Bridge, up there.
DOCTOR: How do we get to it?
KIMUS: We don't.
DOCTOR: One of those, is it? How do the guards get there?
KIMUS: In their aircars, of course.
DOCTOR: Aircars?
KIMUS: Yes.
DOCTOR: Aircars?
KIMUS: There's one over there.
DOCTOR: Help me borrow it.
KIMUS: Borrow it? That's the Captain's.
DOCTOR: Well, I don't mind going first class, do you?
KIMUS: No.
DOCTOR: Come on.

(The guard in the aircar is asleep. The Doctor throws a heavy bag onto the superstructure, waking him. The guard picks up his weapon and climbs out to investigate the trail of fallen liquorice allsorts, which leads to where Kimus and the Doctor had been hiding behind a large pillar. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Kimus get into the aircar and take off.)

DOCTOR: Bye, bye!

(The guard waves back, sheepishly.)

[Bridge]

(Mister Fibuli runs in.)

FIBULI: Er, Captain? Captain, sir.

(The young woman removes something from the Captain's mouth.)

CAPTAIN: Speak.
FIBULI: Bad news, sir.
CAPTAIN: By the horns of the prophet Balag, speak!

(The young woman puts the high tech dummy back into the Captain's mouth. He goes very still.)

FIBULI: The macromat field integrator has burnt out, sir. It's one of the four components we can't replace ourselves, sir. Well, we are faced with two alternatives, Captain. Three alternatives. We can try to find a new macromat field integrator, though I can't envisage how we would do that. Alternatively, there is a very rare mineral, PJX one eight, which would conceivably do the same job as the integrator, if we could find any. Either way, sir, in our current condition we could only possibly make one more jump and that would be risky in the extreme.

(The young woman removes the Captain's 'dummy'. )

CAPTAIN: And the third alternative, Mister Fibuli?
FIBULI: Is for Zanak to settle where it is, sir.
CAPTAIN: No, by the sky demon! I say no!

(He smashes his cybernetic arm down onto a control panel, breaking it. Romana is brought it and they stare at each other.)

[Aircar]

KIMUS: Hey, this is marvellous. Freedom at last!
DOCTOR: You're not free yet.
KIMUS: Free to think. It's amazing. The city looks so pretty from up here. Yes, even the mines do. You know, that's our entire life.
DOCTOR: Tell me about those mines.
KIMUS: Well, we extract all the raw material that we need from them.
DOCTOR: Who goes down them? Do you go down?
KIMUS: No.
DOCTOR: Mentiads?
KIMUS: No.
DOCTOR: No one?
KIMUS: No. They're automated, you see. We just run the equipment.
DOCTOR: What happens when they run out?
KIMUS: The Captain announces a new golden age of prosperity. They just fill up again.
DOCTOR: What, just like that?
KIMUS: Yeah. Well, you don't think that's wrong, do you?
DOCTOR: Wrong? It's an economic miracle. Of course it's wrong.
KIMUS: Oh. Oh then, of course, the lights change.
DOCTOR: What lights?
KIMUS: You know, the lights. The ones on the sky at night. Little points of light.
DOCTOR: Do you mean the stars?
KIMUS: Look down there. I think there's some sort of entrance into the mountain.
DOCTOR: Might be the way to the Bridge.
KIMUS: Say, you're very good at this. Do you drive these things for a living?
DOCTOR: No. I save planets, mostly, but this time I think I've arrived far, far too late.

[Bridge]

CAPTAIN: What is your function?
ROMANA: Well, as a Time Lord, I can travel about in space and, of course
CAPTAIN: Pah! Common space urchin. Pah! You shall die.
ROMANA: And of course, time. Hence Time Lord.
CAPTAIN: Time travel? You expect me to believe such nonsense?
ROMANA: Yes, it is a difficult concept.
CAPTAIN: The insolent breath of idle fantasy! Death comes now!

(The robot parrot takes off from his shoulder. The young woman speaks.)

NURSE: Captain? Captain? The excitement of more than one execution in a day is bad for your blood pressure. Perhaps you should postpone it till tomorrow.
CAPTAIN: Postpone?
NURSE: Yes. I think her story sounds quite interesting, even if it is idle fantasy. Why don't you ask her how this machine she mentions travels.
CAPTAIN: Speak.
ROMANA: Well, roughly speaking, and putting it terribly simply, it dematerialises in one location, passes through a space time vortex and then rematerialises again in a new location.
NURSE: I think that sounds terribly interesting. Don't you?

[Mountain entrance]

(While K9 and Mula walk over the grassy hills, the Doctor has landed the aircar at the base of a sheer cliff with a slanted door in it. The now disused Gelliefelen railway tunnels in Gwent.)

DOCTOR: Well?
KIMUS: It's locked. We'll never get it open. It's impossible.
DOCTOR: Huh. Impossible? That means it'll take seventy three seconds. We can ill afford it. Move over.
KIMUS: What, you mean you can open it?
DOCTOR: Well, of course I can open it. It's just a question of how.
KIMUS: How?
DOCTOR: I haven't got the faintest idea.

(He takes out his sonic screwdriver. It doesn't work on this lock.)

DOCTOR: Hmm.
KIMUS: But it's still locked.
DOCTOR: I haven't finished yet. Bent hairpin. The more sophisticated the technology, the more vulnerable it is to primitive attack. People often overlook the obvious.

(The door still doesn't open. The Doctor walks away and the door gently opens upwards. He was pulling the handles the wrong way.)

KIMUS: Doctor, that's amazing.
DOCTOR: Shall we go?

(Kimus runs inside. The Doctor turns and sees that the door has opened, and follows him. He suddenly stops at the entrance.)

[Bridge]

(Romana is examining a very charred section of machinery.)

ROMANA: Well, whatever it is, it's obviously burnt out.
CAPTAIN: A whining infant could tell me that. Your time is running out.
ROMANA: I'm sorry. I was never any good at antiques. It's probably just an old macromat field integrator or something.
FIBULI: Captain, she does know.
CAPTAIN: By the beard of the sky demon, the jaws of death were hot about your neck.
ROMANA: That must be part of a massive dematerialisation circuit.
CAPTAIN: It is part of a system that transports us instantly through space.
ROMANA: You mean the whole mountain? You take this whole mountain with you through space? Amazing.

[Inside the mountain]

(They reach an archway.)

KIMUS: Doctor, this goes on for ever.
DOCTOR: Yes, it certainly looks like it.
KIMUS: Come on, we'd better hurry.

(Kimus runs through the archway, and continues to run on the spot. He looks back and stops. The Doctor reaches for him.)

KIMUS: Doctor, what's happening?
DOCTOR: Come on.

(The Doctor pulls Kimus back.)

DOCTOR: Kimus, I want you to do something very important for me.
KIMUS: Yes.
DOCTOR: Go out to the aircar, fetch the guard's gun
KIMUS: Right!
DOCTOR: Stand outside on guard.
KIMUS: Ah, no, Doctor, I'd rather come with you.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no, no. That's the most valuable thing you can do. There are so many things here you can't understand, and a linear induction corridor is one of them.

(The Doctor taps a metal cover on the wall and it pops open. He presses a button inside then taps it to close again. Then he steps through the archway.)

DOCTOR: See you later.

(The Doctor is carried away very, very quickly.)

DOCTOR: I'll never be cruel to an electron in a particle accelerator again.

(Kimus tries tapping the control box, but nothing happens and he leaves. The Doctor comes to a halt at the other end.)

DOCTOR: Good heavens. Ah, of course. It isn't a linear induction corridor. It must work by neutralising inertia.

(A door slams down behind him and two triangles on the wall flash, one pointing up, one pointing down.)

DOCTOR: A lift?

(He presses the green up triangle.)

[Bridge]

CAPTAIN: Do you think she can repair it, Mister Fibuli?
FIBULI: Well, sir, in my opinion it's irreparable, but it occurs to me she must have something similar aboard her own vessel.

(The Captain has walked off towards where Romana is working.)

CAPTAIN: Girl! What is your diagnosis? Can it be repaired?
ROMANA: Repaired? Yes, I should think so. You'd have to ask the Doctor, though.
CAPTAIN: Doctor? Are there more intruders upon this planet?
ROMANA: Oh yes. I'm only his assistant. He's the one you should be talking to. Or rather, listening to, if you have the stamina.
CAPTAIN: All guards on alert! There is an intruder on the planet. His name is the Doctor. I repeat, the Doctor.

(A door starts to rise.)

CAPTAIN: He must be found and brought to the bridge instantly.

(The guards go to the door.)

GUARD: We must find the Doctor.

(The Doctor ducks inside under the still rising door.)

DOCTOR: Hello, hello.
FIBULI: Hello.
DOCTOR: (to Fibuli) I'm the Doctor. Delighted to meet you. Heard so much about what a splendid chap you are. I see, I see you've met my assistant, Romana. Getting on like a house on fire, are you? She's a lovely girl. What a splendid place you've got here. Are you having a spot of bother?
CAPTAIN: Seize him!
DOCTOR: Such hospitality. I'm underwhelmed.
CAPTAIN: Doctor, beware. Your manner appeals only to the homicidal side of my nature.
DOCTOR: My manners are impeccable.
ROMANA: Doctor, I think this is the root of the trouble.
DOCTOR: Macromat field integrator. Has the whizz-bang gone wrong?
ROMANA: Yes, and the amblicyclic photon bridge.
DOCTOR: And the amblicyclic photon? Would you mind if I examined its locus?
CAPTAIN: Locus?
DOCTOR: Locus.
FIBULI: There, there, Captain.
CAPTAIN: Release him. Take them to the engine room. If they make one mistake, kill them.

(The Doctor is taken away.)

ROMANA: Oh, Mister Fibuli?

(Romana throws the burnt macromat unit at him and leaves.)

[Engine room]

(Inside Berkley Power Station, Gloucestershire, generating room. This is a Big space.)

DOCTOR: Whoa. Look at that, Romana.
ROMANA: Amazing. I suppose you're going to tell me you've seen it all before.
DOCTOR: No, actually. Not like this.
ROMANA: Really?
DOCTOR: Really. I suspected something of the kind. Come on, let's look busy.

(The Captain and Mister Fibuli watch from an upper walkway as the Doctor goes over to a cluster of control units.)

ROMANA: What do you mean, you suspected
DOCTOR: Shush.
ROMANA: What do you mean, you suspected.
DOCTOR: (loud) Gravitic anomalising input reading, nine point five. (sotto) Nine point five.
ROMANA: (loud) Gravitic anomalising input reading nine point five, check.
DOCTOR: I mean I had my suspicions.
ROMANA: You mean you knew they were here? You knew that this mountain's really a spaceship and it's broken down?
DOCTOR: More or less, yes.
ROMANA: But how? How did you know?
DOCTOR: Well, I just put one point seven nine five three seven two and two point two oh four six two eight together.
ROMANA: And what does that mean?
DOCTOR: Four!
ROMANA: Four!

(Up on the walkway.)

FIBULI: What are they after, Captain, and what do they want here?
CAPTAIN: That is what we must find out. We must let them lead us into their vessel. The guards have tried to gain entry to it but have failed, so we must allow them a little rope. (Back on the main floor the Doctor is looking busy with his back to the Captain.)
DOCTOR: Romana?
ROMANA: Hmm?
DOCTOR: We are in very, very, very great danger.
ROMANA: What, from the Captain?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: Oh, he's just a terrible old bully. All that by the evil nose of the sky demon nonsense is just bluster.
DOCTOR: The Captain is a very clever and very dangerous man. He's playing with us. He wants to find out why we've come here.
ROMANA: The reason why we've come here is to find the second segment of the key, in case you'd forgotten. Getting involved in all this

(Romana has taken the tracer out of her sleeve.)

DOCTOR: Is the only way to find it. What does the tracer say?
ROMANA: I just don't understand it. It seems to give out a continuous signal wherever we go.
DOCTOR: What? That's it, then.
ROMANA: What?
DOCTOR: The answer. Romana, we've stumbled on one of the most heinous crimes ever committed in this galaxy. We've got to get out of here and get out of here quickly. Come on.

(He calls up to the walkway.)

DOCTOR: Ahem. Er, Captain? Your magnifactoid eccentricolometer's definitely on the blink.
CAPTAIN: You know what will happen if I even begin to suspect you of sabotage?
DOCTOR: Sabotage? Captain, it's more than my reputation's worth.
CAPTAIN: Or your life?
DOCTOR: Or my life, as you say. Yes, yes. We've got to go back to our own ship now and prepare some special equipment.
CAPTAIN: The girl stays here.
DOCTOR: Well, I'm afraid that's not possible. You see, we have a special lock fitted to the TARDIS door, and it requires the physical presence of both of us to open it. That's clever, don't you think?
CAPTAIN: Guards, escort them to their ship. Any attempt to escape is to be met with instant obliteration.
DOCTOR: It's a pleasure to work with you, Captain. Well, come on. Don't just stand there, escort us.

(Outside, Kimus is bored. On a path below, a guard kicks a stone then runs. Kimus now is alert.)

[Inside the mountain]

(The guards escort Romana and the Doctor as they travel along the nul-inertia passage, or whatever it is. Douglas continues to give the Doctor lines that will become very familiar in slightly different forms in his new radio show.)

DOCTOR: Standing around all day looking tough must be very wearing on the nerves, hmm?

(He hits the other guard on the helmet.)

DOCTOR: I said, standing around all day looking tough must be very wearing on the nerves!

(They reach the door to the outside.)

DOCTOR: Long hours, violence, no intellectual stimulation.

[Mountain entrance]

(The Doctor leads the group outside.)

KIMUS: Doctor!

(The Doctor points at the guard coming up the slope behind Kimus as the others start firing. Romana and the Doctor throw themselves to the ground. However, none of them seem capable of hitting the broadside of a mountain with their weapons.)

DOCTOR: And now this happens.

(Finally Kimus fells all three guards without injury to himself.)

DOCTOR: (to fallen guard) I'd give it up if I were you. Kimus?
KIMUS: Doctor?

(The Doctor takes the weapon from him.)

DOCTOR: We've got a lot of travelling to do.
KIMUS: Where are we going?
DOCTOR: To investigate your miraculous mines. Come on.

[Outside the Mentiad lair]

(The dark corridor ends in a heavy door.)

K9: This is where the Mentiad psychospore ends.
MULA: You mean they live there? The Mentiads?
K9: Affirmative.

(Mula opens the door and goes in.)

[Bridge]

CAPTAIN: Escaped? Escaped? Your incompetence beggars the imagination! Teeth of the devil, there will be blood for this. There will be blood!

[Mine head]

(Kimus leads Romana and the Doctor to a genuine Welsh coal mine - Blaenavon Big Pit.)

KIMUS: This way. The interior of the mines are fully automated. There is an ancient lift shaft, but nobody's used it in living memory.
ROMANA: Why not?
KIMUS: The penalty is death.
DOCTOR: Huh. I can see there wouldn't be much incentive.

(They go to the head of the pit railway.)

DOCTOR: You know, I think that'll work. Let's see.

(They all get into the cage.)

DOCTOR: Right. Now hold on very tight.

(Nothing happens, then the cage starts down rather slowly.)

[Bridge]

(The winding engine is on the viewscreen.)

FIBULI: Captain, they're in the mineshaft.
CAPTAIN: The mineshaft. Moons of madness! Mister Fibuli?
FIBULI: Yes, sir.
CAPTAIN: We must find a way of breaking into their vessel without their help. Once they have seen what lies at the bottom of the mineshaft, they must never leave alive. Never! Guards, the intruders in the mineshaft must be obliterated!

[Cave]

(Huge, dark, with plenty of water running nearby. Welcome to Cathedral Cave, Dan-y-Ogof.)

ROMANA: Where are we, Doctor?
DOCTOR: About three miles beneath the surface of Zanak, I'd say.
ROMANA: Three miles?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: But it's so cold.
DOCTOR: Yes. And wet and icy. Ah! Romana, this entire planet's hollow.
ROMANA: Hollow?
DOCTOR: Yes, hollow. Hollow! Can't you work it out? Go on, take a look. Go on, look. Look! You all right?
KIMUS: It's all beyond me, Doctor. I don't know where I am.
ROMANA: It's frozen ground, Doctor. I don't understand. Cold, wet.
DOCTOR: Come here and listen. Now listen, Kimus. The reason the stars in your sky change is because they don't.
KIMUS: They don't?
DOCTOR: No. Your entire planet jumps through space
ROMANA: Those engines!
DOCTOR: Yes, those engines. Huge enough to dematerialise an entire hollow planet, flip it halfway across the galaxy and rematerialise it round its chosen prey.
ROMANA: You mean other planets?
DOCTOR: Yes, like a huge fist. It's one huge mining machine that mines planets, extracts all the valuable minerals and leaves the rubble behind.
ROMANA: Then what we're standing on now
DOCTOR: Is the planet we originally came looking for.
DOCTOR + ROMANA: Calufrax.
ROMANA: Buried inside Zanak?
DOCTOR: Buried inside Zanak, the pirate planet, and having the goodness sucked out of it.
KIMUS: Do you mean that whole other worlds have died to make us rich? Whole other worlds like ours?
DOCTOR: Whole other worlds.
ROMANA: Some of them inhabited.
DOCTOR: The oolian stone I picked up in the street. Bandraginus Five! I knew I'd heard that name somewhere before. I remember now. About a hundred years ago it disappeared without trace. A planet of a thousand million souls, Captain fodder.

(The Doctor drops the oolian onto the ground. Kimus picks it up.)

KIMUS: Bandraginus Five, by every last breath in my body, you'll be avenged.

(Romana takes out the tracer.)

ROMANA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes?
ROMANA: The tracer, it's gone mad. The second segment must be down here somewhere.
DOCTOR: Yes, I thought so.
KIMUS: Doctor!
GUARD: There they are! Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!

(The Doctor, Romana and Kimus run deeper into the cave as the troop of guards start shooting. Kimus returns fire and gets one of them. Romana and the Doctor turn a corner and meet a group of Mentiads.)

MENTIAD: Doctor, we have come for you.
Part Three

[Cave]

(The guards run forward, and one of the Mentiads removes his cowl.)

KIMUS: Pralix? Pralix, what?
GUARD: We will kill them. Kill them all.

(The guards start firing, but the Mentiads raise their arms and create a barrier to block their weapons fire. The guards give up.)

KIMUS: Pralix, what have they done to you?
PRALIX: Hurry. The force wall will not last long.
ROMANA: They're on our side.
DOCTOR: I thought as much.
KIMUS: But I don't understand.
DOCTOR: Exciting, isn't it.

[Mentiad lair]

K9: Master?
MULA: What is it?
K9: The Mentiads have located Doctor master. They're approaching.
MULA: How can you tell? I didn't hear anything.
K9: The Doctor master has very distinctive heartbeats. Estimated time of arrival twenty one point nine seconds.
MULA: I can't get over the Mentiads. All my life I've been taught to hate and loathe them.
K9: The Doctor would not have instructed me to conduct you to them if he had not thought it safe. Twelve seconds.
MULA: But how could he possibly know?
K9: My subsequent analysis of their brainwave patterns indicated no malice when they attacked him.
MULA: You mean they slammed him to the wall with good vibrations?
K9: Affirmative. Arrival imminent.

(The Mentiads walk in and form a circle.)

DOCTOR: Hello, K9. Surprised to see us?
K9: Amazed, master.
DOCTOR: There you are. Didn't I say he'd be amazed?

[Bridge]

GUARD: Captain? Captain, sir. We were attacked in the mines. The Doctor has escaped with the Mentiads.
CAPTAIN: With the Mentiads?

(The robot parrot takes off from the Captain's shoulder and kills the guard.)

CAPTAIN: Incompetent fools.

[Mentiad lair]

MENTIAD: Doctor, did you bring us the understanding we seek? For generation upon generation, our planet has been assailed by a nameless evil. We would know it's name.
DOCTOR: Its name's the Captain. You know that. Why haven't you kicked him out?
MENTIAD: Because his evil is beyond our comprehension. Strange images haunt our brains, and yet, when a new Mentiad presence appears amongst the people, we know we must find him and protect him.
PRALIX: They found me just in time.
MENTIAD: With each new Mentiad we grow stronger, but still the understanding evades us. We're constricted by the people's hatred.
DOCTOR: A gestalt. A telepathic gestalt!
KIMUS: A g what?
K9: Many minds combine together telepathically to form a single entity.
ROMANA: The power of a gestalt is enormous.
PRALIX: Can you help us, Doctor? We are powerless unless we understand. Can you tell us what's happening to Zanak?
DOCTOR: Yes. Zanak's just a shell of a planet, a complete hollow.
PRALIX: Hollow?
DOCTOR: Yes, but very rarely empty. Now, listen. There are vast transmat engines hidden underneath the Captain's mountain.
ROMANA: Yes. They make the entire planet suddenly drop out of the space dimension. Vanish.
MULA: Vanish? Is that possible?
DOCTOR: Yes, but you don't notice that, you see, because you're part of it. Now listen. At almost the same moment it vanishes, it rematerialises in another part of the galaxy around another, slightly smaller, planet.
ROMANA: In this case, a planet called Calufrax.
DOCTOR: Yes. So your planet
ROMANA: Zanak. Just helping you along, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Yes. So your planet
MULA: Zanak.
DOCTOR: Yes. Having materialised around the other planet, smothers it, crushes it, and mines all the mineral wealth out of it.
MULA: Just like an enormous leech.
DOCTOR: Yes.
KIMUS: And that's when the lights change.
MULA: The omens!
DOCTOR: Yes. The omens mean the death of another planet.

[Bridge]

CAPTAIN: By the blood of the sky demon, we've been queasy fools. We should have obliterated the Mentiads years ago and rid ourselves of their sickly power.
FIBULI: But Captain, we have tried many times in the past.
CAPTAIN: And failed, Mister Fibuli, and failed.
FIBULI: Captain, you said yourself it was a question of priorities.
CAPTAIN: I said! You dare to lay the rotting fruits of your own incompetence at my door?
FIBULI: Captain, in your wisdom, you observed that whilst the Mentiads lay dormant with no leader and no purpose, we were well enough protected.
CAPTAIN: But now they will not be leaderless. Now they will have a clear purpose.
FIBULI: But sir, the means to destroy them is at last within our grasp. The planet Calufrax is rich in voolium and madranite one five. That's what we came here for.
CAPTAIN: Voolium and madranite one five. That is true, that is true.
FIBULI: The vibrations of the refined crystals can be harnessed to produce interference patterns which will neutralise their mental power.
CAPTAIN: And leave them defenceless, as weak as ordinary men. Obliterable! Excellent, Mister Fibuli, excellent. Your death shall be delayed.
FIBULI: Oh, thank you again and again, sir. Your goodness confounds me.
CAPTAIN: Mister Fibuli, how soon can you be prepared?
FIBULI: Ah. Well, if we put all the automated mining and processing equipment on the planet on to full power, sir, we could reduce the entire planet of Calufrax within, er, hours. Of course, the machinery will be dangerously overloaded, and the
CAPTAIN: That matters not a quark, Mister Fibuli. Speed is of the essence. The Mentiads will be moving even know. Do it on the instant and this time there shall be no escape. Hurry. Hurry, I say!

[Mentiad lair]

DOCTOR: So Zanak was a happy, prosperous planet?
PRALIX: Yes, till the reign of Queen Xanxia.
MENTIAD: May her spirit be accursed.
PRALIX: She had some kind of evil powers. The legend says she lived for hundreds of years.
DOCTOR: Come on, that's not necessarily evil. I've known hundreds of people who've lived for hundreds
ROMANA: Shush, Doctor.
DOCTOR: What?
ROMANA: Please carry on.
K9: Master.
DOCTOR: Shush, K9, shush. Please carry on.
PRALIX: Queen Xanxia staged galactic wars to demonstrate her powers. By the time she'd finished, Zanak was ruined. When the Captain arrived there was hardly anyone left.
MENTIAD: Just a few miserable nomadic tribes.
DOCTOR: Hmm. Tell me, how did he arrive?
MENTIAD: The legend speaks of a giant silver ship that fell from the sky one night with a mighty crash like thunder. The Captain was one of the few survivors.
DOCTOR: And needed pretty extensive surgery, by the look of him. I wonder who did that?
PRALIX: I don't think anyone knows.
K9: Master?
DOCTOR: Not now, K9, not now. Go on.
MENTIAD: The Captain took charge of Zanak. He persuaded the people to work for him.
KIMUS: Golden ages of prosperity. Huh. Pampered slavery more like.
MENTIAD: For some of us, terrible agonies of the mind began.
DOCTOR: Yes, well, they would for someone who was telepathic.
KIMUS: Why, Doctor? Do you know?
DOCTOR: Yes. Yes, I do. You were absorbing what you would call the life force from the plundered planets.
PRALIX: What is the life force?
DOCTOR: Well, er, well, it's quite difficult to explain simple terms, but basically, Romana?
ROMANA: Every atom of matter in the universe has a certain amount of energy locked inside it. Now, with something the size of a planet, there's an enormous quantity.
DOCTOR: Oh, enormous.
ROMANA: So every time Zanak crushes a planet, it releases all that energy. Now, some of it will be on psychic wavelengths.
DOCTOR: Right.
ROMANA: So every time it happens, there's a fantastic blast of psychic energy, enough to smash open the neural pathways of anyone with telepathic abilities, like you Mentiads.
DOCTOR: That's right. You Mentiads were absorbing all that power into your brains.
ROMANA: Yes.
MENTIAD: And each planet as it dies, adds to that power. The power by which it will be avenged.
K9: Master?
DOCTOR: What is it, K9?
K9: My seismograph detects enormous increase in mining operations round the whole planet. Every mining machine is now working at full pressure.

[Bridge]

(The Captain is working on a piece of equipment, using only his right little finger.)

CAPTAIN: By the left frontal lobe of the sky demon, Mister Fibuli, I used to be one of the greatest hyper-engineers of my time.
FIBULI: Of all time, Captain. Your reconstruction of this planet is proof of that.
CAPTAIN: It is not scale that counts, but skill. Now, the ship from which most of the major components were salvaged, the Ventarialis, now there was a ship.

(Fibuli removes the plectrum-like device from the Captain's finger.)

CAPTAIN: The greatest raiding cruiser ever built. And I built it, Mister Fibuli, I built it with technology so far advanced you would not be able to distinguish it from magic.
FIBULI: All the same, sir, this must be one of the great engineering feats of all time. A hollow, space-jumping planet?
CAPTAIN: This planet? This vile, lumbering planet? Devil storms, Mister Fibuli, you are a callow fool. Do you not see how my heart burns for the dangerous liberty of the skies? Plunder, battle, and escape! My soul is imprisoned, bound to this ugly lump of blighted rock, beset by zombie Mentiads and interfering Doctors.
FIBULI: But what can they do to you, Captain?
CAPTAIN: Enough! They shall die! By the flaming moons of hell, they shall die. Find me those crystals, Mister Fibuli.
FIBULI: Aye, aye, Captain. As soon as we can, sir.

(Fibuli runs out.)

CAPTAIN: I shall be avenged.

(The young woman is sitting in his chair.)

NURSE: Oh, good. I see you've found some occupational therapy, Captain. It's a good thing not to let your old skills die.
CAPTAIN: I assure you, my old skills are very much alive.

[Zanak city]

(The Doctor and Kimus come across a guard sleeping in an aircar in a plaza.)

DOCTOR: Well, they say you can fool some of the people all of the time. Let's see, shall we?

(The Doctor throws his bag of sweets onto the aircar. Once again, the guard wakes, picks up the bag and follows a trail of allsorts round a large pillar while the Doctor and Kimus get into the aircar.)

DOCTOR: I really must stop doing this. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

(The starter button gives the Doctor an electric shock.)

GUARD: Hold it.
DOCTOR: Hands up.
GUARD: Get out.

[Bridge]

FIBULI: Captain, sir! Captain, they've caught the Doctor!
CAPTAIN: Splendid, Mister Fibuli.
FIBULI: He was trying to steal an aircar, but one of our guards managed to immobilise it. We've sent another aircar to pick them up, which means in the end
CAPTAIN: Trivia, Mister Fibuli, trivia. Have the guards managed to open his vessel yet?
FIBULI: No, sir. It is proving remarkably difficult. Nothing they can do will even mark it.
CAPTAIN: Fools. Incompetent cretins.
FIBULI: But we have located a potential source for PJX one eight.
CAPTAIN: Ah. Better, Mister Fibuli.
FIBULI: We can manage one more jump under our present conditions, sir. If we made it to that planet, we could mine it for PJX one eight and then make our own repairs.
CAPTAIN: We will mine it. Prepare to jump as soon as the voolium and madranite one five crystals have been produced.
FIBULI: I feel I should point out, Captain, that it is a heavily populated planet.
CAPTAIN: Show me the chart.
FIBULI: It is here, sir, in the planetary system of the star Sol. The planet Terra.
CAPTAIN: Ah yes. A pretty planet.
FIBULI: It looks a pleasant world, Captain.
CAPTAIN: Then it will be pleasant to destroy it.
FIBULI: Yes, sir. I will make arrangements.

(Fibuli leaves.)

NURSE: Another planet, Captain?
CAPTAIN: Another planet.
NURSE: Then the objective will soon be reached.
CAPTAIN: It will. Ha! It will indeed.

[Zanak city]

(K9 is sitting in an aircar, surrounded by curious locals.)

K9: Master.

(Mula is leading Romana and the Mentiads across the hills. K9 activates the aircar.)

K9: Contact.

[Bridge]

(Kimus and the Doctor are shackled to some scaffolding. The Doctor seems delirious and Kimus is out cold.)

DOCTOR: Have I told you my plan? No more janis thorns. No more janis thorns! I think it should work really quite well. I think. Argh!

(The Doctor wakes.)

DOCTOR: Good morning.
CAPTAIN: So, Doctor, you have discovered the little secret of our planet.
DOCTOR: You won't get away with it, you know.
CAPTAIN: And what makes you so certain of that?
DOCTOR: At the moment, nothing at all, but it does my morale no end of good just to say it. I've been tied to pillars by better men than you, Captain.
CAPTAIN: Ah, but none, I dare guess, more vicious.
DOCTOR: Vicious? Ha. Don't panic, Kimus. Don't panic.

[Aircar]

K9: We have lift off.

[Bridge]

DOCTOR: What are you doing it for, Captain? It doesn't make sense and you know it. I can understand the life of a full-blooded pirate, the thrill, the danger and the derring-do, but this? Hidden away in your mountain retreat eating other people's perfectly good planets, where's the derring-do in that?
CAPTAIN: Silence!
DOCTOR: You're just trying to shut me up. You can't kill me while I'm helpless.
CAPTAIN: Oh, can't I?
DOCTOR: No, you can't, because you're a warrior, and it's against the warrior's code. You should have thought of that before you tied me up.
CAPTAIN: By the hounds of hell
DOCTOR: Hard to listen, isn't it, Captain, when someone's got a finger on a nerve. What is it you're really up to? What do you want? You don't want to take over the universe, do you? No. You wouldn't know what to do with it, beyond shout at it.
CAPTAIN: Mister Fibuli!
FIBULI: Yes, sir.
CAPTAIN: No. Release him.
FIBULI: But Captain.
DOCTOR: He said release me.

[Trophy room]

(A collection of football-sized lumps in perspex tubes.)

CAPTAIN: My trophies, Doctor. Feast your eyes on them, for they represent an achievement unparalleled in the universe.
DOCTOR: What are they? Tombstones? Memorials to all the worlds you've destroyed?
CAPTAIN: Not memorials. These are the entire remains of the worlds themselves.
DOCTOR: You come here on the wanton destruction you've wreaked on the universe.

(The Doctor looks at Bandraginus Five, while the Captain stands by Granados.)

CAPTAIN: I come in here to dream of freedom.
DOCTOR: Did you just say the entire remains of the worlds themselves?
CAPTAIN: Yes, Doctor. Each of these small spheres is the crushed remains of a planet. Million upon millions of tons of compressed rock held suspended here by forces beyond the limits of the imagination. Forces that I have generated and harnessed.
DOCTOR: That's impossible! That amount of matter in so small a space would undergo instant gravitational collapse and form a black hole!
CAPTAIN: Precisely.
DOCTOR: What? But Zanak would be dragged into a gravitational whirlpool
CAPTAIN: Why doesn't it? Because the whole system is so perfectly aligned by the most exquisite exercise in gravitational geometry that every system is balanced out within itself. Which is why we can stand next to billions of tons of super- compressed matter and not even be aware of it. With each new planet I acquire, the forces are realigned but the system remains stable.
DOCTOR: Then it's the most brilliant piece of astro-gravitational engineering I've ever seen. The concept is simply staggering. Pointless, but staggering.
CAPTAIN: I'm gratified that you appreciate it.
DOCTOR: Appreciate it? Appreciate it? What, you commit mass destruction and murder on a scale that's almost inconceivable and you ask me to appreciate it? Just because you happen to have made a brilliantly conceived toy out of the mummified remains of planets
CAPTAIN: Devil storms, Doctor! It is not a toy!
DOCTOR: What's it for? Huh? What are you doing? What could possibly be worth all this?
CAPTAIN: By the raging fury of the sky demon, you ask too many questions. You have seen, you have admired. Be satisfied and ask no more!
FIBULI [OC]: Captain, sir. Come quickly, please. The Mentiads, they're on their way.
CAPTAIN: Excellent, Mister Fibuli. Excellent. Guards.

(Next to Calufrax's empty tube, the Doctor tries to form different shapes with his hands until a guard jabs him with a weapon.)

[Foot of the mountain]

ROMANA: It's a long climb up there.
PRALIX: Don't worry, we'll make it.
MULA: I hope Kimus and the Doctor managed to break into the engine room without getting caught.
PRALIX: We're in trouble if they haven't.
ROMANA: The Doctor knows what he's doing.

[Bridge]

(Two guards are holding the Doctor up.)

DOCTOR: Would you like to put me down?
CAPTAIN: Put him down.

(The Doctor falls to the floor.)

CAPTAIN: We're preparing to meet your friends the Mentiads. The poor misbegotten fools who are going to attempt to storm the Bridge.
DOCTOR: That should be fun.
KIMUS: What?
DOCTOR: Kimus, are you all right?
KIMUS: What?
DOCTOR: For goodness sake, get him down. He hasn't done you any harm. Captain?
CAPTAIN: You do it.

(The Captain drops a ring with one key onto the floor. The Doctor bends down to pick it up and the Captain stamps his foot. The Doctor winces, takes the key and frees Kimus.)

CAPTAIN: By the bursting suns of Banzar, Mister Fibuli, where are my crystals?
KIMUS: Doctor, where, where are we?
DOCTOR: We're on the Bridge.
KIMUS: The Bridge? What's that?
DOCTOR: That's your beloved Captain.
KIMUS: But I
DOCTOR: Shush. Don't make any noise. The Mentiads are on their way here and he's got no power against their psychic strength.
KIMUS: What's that machine he's
DOCTOR: Oh, it looks like a psychic interference transmitter.
KIMUS: A what?
DOCTOR: Well, it's a sort of machine for neutralising psychic power.

(Oops.)

CAPTAIN: Wag your tongue well, Doctor. It is the only weapon you have left.
DOCTOR: Nonsense, Captain, nonsense. To make that machine work you'd need a collection of the most rare crystals.
CAPTAIN: Yes?
DOCTOR: Oh, yes. Voolium.
CAPTAIN: Voolium?
DOCTOR: Madranite one five.
CAPTAIN: One five.

(Fibuli enters with a box.)

DOCTOR: And as far as I know, they occur naturally on only one planet, and that's
FIBULI: Captain, the crystals from
FIBULI + DOCTOR: Calufrax.
DOCTOR: My biorhythms must be at an all time low.
CAPTAIN: Excellent, Mister Fibuli, excellent. You see, Doctor, your friends are doomed.
DOCTOR: They are?
CAPTAIN: And so are you. We need not delay your death any longer. By the curl-ed fangs of the sky demon, I've looked forward to this moment.
KIMUS: You hideous, murdering maniac!

(Kimus picks up a crowbar. The robot parrot gets interested.)

DOCTOR: No, no, no. Don't, don't.
CAPTAIN: Avitron, kill.

(The robot parrot takes off, and the robot dog enters. The organic lifeforms duck and take cover as the robots take pot shots at each other around the Bridge. Then K9 backs out.)

DOCTOR: Come back, K9! Come back!

(Avitron follows him out. The Doctor and Kimus run for it.)

DOCTOR: Come on.
CAPTAIN: Stop them! Stop them!

[Trophy room]

(Kimus seals the door to the Bridge.)

KIMUS: What's this place?
DOCTOR: Never mind about that. Let's find another way out.

(K9 trundles along, shooting at Avitron.)

DOCTOR: Get back.

(The Doctor and Kimus run to the far end of the corridor cum room.)

DOCTOR: Here it is.
KIMUS: Locked?
DOCTOR: Yes.
KIMUS: We're trapped.
DOCTOR: Never.

(The sonic screwdriver does its thing.)

DOCTOR: Come on.

[Xanxia's throne room]

(A wizened old woman in golden robes and crown sits on a throne between two sets of curved tubes.. She breathes slightly and stares at nothing. Kimus steps forward.)

DOCTOR: No, don't. Those are the time dams.
KIMUS: What, you mean they stop time?
DOCTOR: Not completely, but they can slow down the flow of time in the space between, given enough energy.
KIMUS: That's repulsive. What is it?
DOCTOR: That's your beloved queen, Xanxia.
KIMUS: What? No, no, Xanxia's dead.
DOCTOR: Oh no, she's not. She's suspended in the last few seconds of life.
KIMUS: You mean she can hear me? But I just called
DOCTOR: No, she can't.
KIMUS: Does she know we're here?
DOCTOR: No. Not while she's between those two things there.

(The Doctor lifts a hatch cover at the back of the room.)

[Bridge]

NURSE: How much longer must we wait?
CAPTAIN: Mister Fibuli?
FIBULI: Sir?
CAPTAIN: Prepare to prise open the door.

(Fibuli hands the crowbar to a guard.)

[Xanxia's throne room]

DOCTOR: To find enough energy to fuel those dams, you'd need to ransack entire planets.
KIMUS: So whole other worlds have been destroyed with the sole purpose of keeping that alive?
DOCTOR: Yes. There must be something more to it than that.
KIMUS: Even more?
DOCTOR: Yes. Would you go to those lengths just to stay alive?
KIMUS: Not in that revolting condition, no.
DOCTOR: No, not in that condition, but in what condition? What? Shush.

(The door opens, and a robot dog enters carrying a dead robot parrot in its jaws.)

DOCTOR: K9! Look at that.

(The Doctor takes the parrot)

K9: Master.
DOCTOR: You're a good dog, K9. A good dog? You're a hero!
K9: Congratulations are unnecessary, master.
DOCTOR: Isn't that marvellous?
KIMUS: Well, it's certainly a relief, but how are we going to get out of here?
DOCTOR: I've got a job for you two. Now listen. Over there, there's a service elevator. It must go down to the engine room.
KIMUS: So?
DOCTOR: So? So you and K9 are going down in the lift to the engine room to sabotage the engines, all right?
K9: Affirmative, master.
DOCTOR: Good. Off you go then.
KIMUS: What about you?
DOCTOR: I'm going to see to the Captain.

(The Doctor picks up a box with a short tube at one end.)

DOCTOR: Ready, Captain?

[Bridge]

(The guard is failing to open the door.)

FIBULI: Here, give it to me. I'll do it.
GUARD: Yes, sir.
DOCTOR: All right, all right, all right, I give up.
CAPTAIN: So, Doctor, you have survived.
DOCTOR: Yes, I'm afraid I seem unable to break the habit.
CAPTAIN: And your colleagues?
DOCTOR: My colleagues (thumb down)
CAPTAIN: Excellent. And my Polyphase Avitron?

(The Doctor holds it out, upside down. The Captain takes it, and looks about to cry.)

DOCTOR: I'm sorry about that, but it was becoming an infernal nuisance.
CAPTAIN: Destroyed? By the great parrot of Hades, you shall pay with the last drop of your blood. Every corpuscle, do you hear? Mister Fibuli.
FIBULI: Yes, sir.

(The Captain, the nurse and Mister Fibuli go into a huddle.)

DOCTOR: Er, Captain, I think you'd better hear what I have to say first. Ahem. I mean, I think when you hear what I've got to say, you'll change your mind.
FIBULI: Guilty.
DOCTOR: Please listen.
CAPTAIN: Guilty.
DOCTOR: Please, listen!
CAPTAIN: Guards.

(A panel at the back of the Bridge slides up. Mister Fibuli leads the Doctor and his escort around and up some steps to it. We see there is a plank sticking out into the air.)

CAPTAIN: A plank. The theory is very simple. You walk along it. At the end, you fall off, drop one thousand feet. Dead.
DOCTOR: You can't be serious. Is he?

(Fibuli nods. The Doctor walks out and nearly falls off.)

DOCTOR: Captain, you don't realise what you're doing. If you just listen to me
CAPTAIN: I shall listen to you when I hear you scream.
DOCTOR: But please.

(The Captain fires an energy pistol at the Doctor's feet, making him 'dance'.)

DOCTOR: But
CAPTAIN: Bye, bye.

(The Doctor falls off the plank. The Captain laughs.)

Part Four

[Bridge]

(The Captain, Mister Fibuli and the Nurse walk back down the steps, chuckling. The smiles vanish from their faces as they hear the Doctor laughing too. He is standing by the entrance to the Bridge, holding that box with the short tube.)

DOCTOR: Hello, everybody.
CAPTAIN: Doctor!
DOCTOR: Sorry I couldn't make the jump myself. I've got a terrible head for heights.
CAPTAIN: Then who?

(The Doctor switches on the little box, and a second Doctor appears on the upper level.)

DOCTOR 2: I've discovered your little secret. We're not all quite as we seem.

(The Doctor switches his double off.)

DOCTOR: Neat little machine, isn't it. And the image it projects might almost be real.

(On again.)

DOCTOR 2: Hello, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Hello. How are you?
DOCTOR 2: Oh, terribly well. Can't complain.
DOCTOR: Goodbye.
DOCTOR 2: Bye, bye.

(And off again.)

DOCTOR: And just as I can switch off that image of myself, I can also switch off the image of another apparently real person.

(The Nurse flickers, but does not vanish.)

NURSE: Try all you like, Doctor, it won't work on me. My new body has almost attained fully corporeal form. It can no longer simply be turned off. Guards, seize him!
CAPTAIN: Do as she says.

[Mountain entrance]

ROMANA: Here we are. This is the doorway. Can you open it?
PRALIX: Brothers, we shall direct our mind energies against the door. It shall open for us.

(The door opens obediently. Two guards run up behind them.)

ROMANA: Pralix, look out!

(While the Mentiads block the weapons fire, Romana and Mula run inside the mountain. The Mentiads cause a rock fall which knocks out the guards.)

ROMANA: Very impressive.

(Mula gets one of the guards weapons.)

[Bridge]

NURSE: Mister Fibuli, place the crystals in the machine.
FIBULI: Madranite one five.

[Mountain entrance]

(The guard who still has a weapon recovers and creeps round the back of the aircar.)

ROMANA: Look out!
PRALIX: The power, it's gone. The power has gone.

(The guard shoots a Mentiad. Romana takes the weapon off Mula and shoots the guard.)

ROMANA: Pralix, what happened?
PRALIX: I don't know. We can't tell. The contact between us has gone. We can't function.
ROMANA: Well, so much for the paranormal. It's back to brute force, I suppose.

(She gives the weapon to Mula and they all go into the mountain.)

[Bridge]

NURSE: Is it working?
FIBULI: Yes, full power.
NURSE: Good. Now we'll show these zombies who rules here.
DOCTOR: So, Xanxia, the tyrant queen of Zanak.
NURSE: Bring the manifest.

(Fibuli gives her a folder.)

DOCTOR: What about the real you? That wizened old body in the time dams back there.
NURSE: That thing is not me. This is now the real Queen Xanxia.

(The Captain looks up from cradling his non-functioning parrot.)

DOCTOR: Oh, no, no, no, not yet it isn't. Your new body's based on a cell projection system, I think.
NURSE: Permanent regeneration based on cells in my old body, and thus containing all the memory patterns and all the brilliance built up over the centuries.
DOCTOR: Ah, but it's still unstable, isn't it? You're still dependant on the last few seconds of life in the old body.
NURSE: I'm nearly complete. My molecular structure has almost bound together, finally and forever. That is why you could not turn me off.
DOCTOR: It won't work, you know. Believe me. I'm an old hand at regenerations. It can't be done that way. Those time dams back there, they just won't work.
NURSE: I have calculated every detail. I shall live for ever.
DOCTOR: Bafflegab, my dear. I've never heard such bafflegab in all my lives.
NURSE: You dare to mock me?
DOCTOR: Yes.

(Nu-Xanxia gives him a hard backhanded slap across the face.)

DOCTOR: Ow! Ah, now we're getting somewhere, aren't we.
NURSE: You shall die now for your insolence.

(She touches a button on the box on her belt, and the Captain raises his cybernetic arm.)

DOCTOR: No, Captain. Captain, listen to me. This concerns you. You're being used, you know. You're being used by her just to do her dirty work. And what's your reward, Captain? Eternal life?
NURSE: What do you know of eternal life?
DOCTOR: Enough to know it can't be sustained by those time dams back there.
NURSE: When this body becomes fully corporeal
DOCTOR: It never will. Not ever.
NURSE: My calculations
DOCTOR: Are wrong.
NURSE: No, impossible!
DOCTOR: Inevitable, because they are based on a false promise.
NURSE: I gutted my own planet Zanak for all the energy it contained. I've ransacked planets from Bandraginus to Calufrax. Do you think I'm going to stop now?
DOCTOR: What next, suns? It's no good. The energy needs of the time dams increase exponentially. There just isn't enough energy in the universe to keep them going for ever. In the end, you'll die.
NURSE: You're lying, trying to save your worthless neck.
DOCTOR: I just don't think it's worth all that effort. What do you think, Mister Fibuli? Captain? What do you think, Captain.

(Xanxia presses another button and the Captain slumps in his chair.)

DOCTOR: Ah, so that's how you control him.
NURSE: The Mentiads must still be approaching. Captain, deal with them.

(The Captain gets up and raises his real arm. He holds a dagger.)

CAPTAIN: By all the
NURSE: I said, deal with them.

(The cybernetic arm knocks the dagger out of his right hand.)

CAPTAIN: Mister Fibuli, seal the Bridge.
FIBULI: Aye, aye, Captain.

[Outside the Bridge]

(Romana and Co. are just too late.)

MULA: I get the feeling the Doctor's not in control here.

[Bridge]

NURSE: We are impregnable. The Mentiads are powerless. The guards will pick them off at will. Captain, is Calufrax now entirely rendered?
CAPTAIN: Mister Fibuli?
FIBULI: Oh, er, yes, sir. All operations on Calufrax are now complete.
NURSE: And you have located a planet where we can find the mineral PJX one eight?
DOCTOR: PJX one eight? But, well, that's quartz.
FIBULI: Yes.
DOCTOR: Yes, but from where? Where?
FIBULI: It's the planet Terra in the star system Sol.
NURSE: Captain, we will mine that planet immediately. Prepare to make the jump.
DOCTOR: Earth? Earth? Do you really mean to go on with this madness? But Captain, Earth is an inhabited planet.

(The Doctor backs away to the bridge entrance and presses the door control. It starts to open while everyone else is occupied with their tasks.)

DOCTOR: Billions and billions of people. You can't be that insane.
NURSE: Jump immediately, Captain.
CAPTAIN: It'll take ten minutes to set the coordinates.
FIBULI: Ten minutes, Captain.
DOCTOR: You can't possibly succeed. The Mentiads will destroy you.
FIBULI: No, Doctor, not whilst we have the psychic interference transmitter.
DOCTOR: What, that?
FIBULI: Yes, yes. You see, whilst that is fully operational, the Mentiads are powerless. Oh, the doors.
DOCTOR: It's all right, I'll close it.
FIBULI: Thank you.

(The Doctor runs out.)

CAPTAIN: Stop him!
NURSE: Leave him. There's no time.
FIBULI: Dematerialisation minus nine minutes, Captain.
NURSE: Is the engine room still sealed?
FIBULI: Yes, sir.
NURSE: Then he can do no damage. Xanxia shall live.

[Outside the Bridge]

DOCTOR: Kimus and K9?
ROMANA: They were with you.
DOCTOR: No, I sent them to sabotage the engines. The planet's about to jump again.
ROMANA: Doctor, we're fighting a losing battle. The Mentiads can't get their psychokinetic powers to work.
DOCTOR: Yes, I know. I know. They've got a psychic interference transmitter on the Bridge.

(Kimus runs up.)

PRALIX: Here's Kimus.
KIMUS: It's no use, Doctor. The engine room is barricaded with steel inches thick.
DOCTOR: Where's K9?
KIMUS: I thought he was following on. His batteries are exhausted from trying to burn down the door.
DOCTOR: Listen, you and Mula stay here and cover us. The rest of us, the engine room.
ROMANA: What are we going to do, Doctor?
DOCTOR: I don't know.

[Outside the engine room]

K9: Master.
DOCTOR: Come on, K9, we need you.
K9: Batteries my exhausted nearly are.
DOCTOR: Listen, K9, that's all right. The Mentiads can still open the door if you can set up counter interference in the psychic plane. Wavelength three three seven point nine eight microbars. Can you do that?
K9: Negative, master. Recharge I imperative it is.
DOCTOR: That's all right, K9. You're still my best friend.
K9: Doctor.
DOCTOR: What? What?

(K9's voicebox is so weak, we can't make out what he mumbles.)

DOCTOR: Oh, K9.
ROMANA: What did he say?
DOCTOR: He said there's a power cable right behind me. Quick, open his inspection hatch.
ROMANA: Right.
DOCTOR: That's it. K9, can you divert any of this current into your frequency projectors?
K9: Affirmative, master.
DOCTOR: Good boy. Keep it going, K9.
PRALIX: It's clearing. The buzzing, it's clearing.
DOCTOR: What? Enough to open a door?
MENTIAD: Brothers.
DOCTOR: More power, K9, more power.
PRALIX: Doctor, we're not nearly strong enough to open it.
ROMANA: Doctor, do you remember what happened when we first tried to materialise on Calufrax?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: We couldn't because Zanak was trying to materialise in the same place.
DOCTOR: That's right. And if we couldn't materialise then neither can Zanak. Quick, back to the TARDIS. K9, keep generating power. Pralix.
PRALIX: Yes.
DOCTOR: Read my mind. What can you see?
PRALIX: A strip of metal
DOCTOR: Right.
PRALIX: Subdivided at one end with an acute angle halfway along.
DOCTOR: Right, right. Now, whatever happens, you keep concentrating on my mind. Come on, Romana. We've got a planet to save.
ROMANA: What were you thinking of, Doctor?
DOCTOR: A bent fork.
ROMANA: Why should anyone want to bend a fork?
DOCTOR: I haven't the vaguest idea.

(Pralix smiles.)

[Inside the mountain]

(The Doctor and Romana are whizzing along the anti-inertia corridor.)

ROMANA: Doctor, behind us. Guards.
DOCTOR: Cover your heads. We're almost there.

(They arrive at the end of the corridor.)

DOCTOR: Get off now.
ROMANA: Come on, Doctor.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, wait a minute. The inertia neutraliser. You know, I think the conservation of momentum is a very important law in physics, don't you?
ROMANA: Yes.
DOCTOR: I don't think anyone should tamper with it, do you?
ROMANA: No.
DOCTOR: No, nor do I.

(The Doctor pulls out a control unit, yanks a wire and puts it back. The guards come hurtling out of the corridor straight into the opposite wall.)

DOCTOR: Newton's revenge. Come on.

[Bridge]

(Fibuli is jabbing at green and blue buttons to no apparent effect.)

FIBULI: Captain, sir.
NURSE: Yes?
CAPTAIN: Speak, Mister Fibuli.
FIBULI: The psychic interference transmitter, sir. There seems to be something counter-jamming it.
CAPTAIN: What? We dematerialise in three minutes. (broadcast) All guards on alert! Someone is using a counter-jamming frequency projector. Find it and destroy it immediately.
FIBULI: Captain, do you suppose any of the guards know what a counter-jamming frequency projector looks like?
CAPTAIN: Destroy everything!

[Aircar]

ROMANA: Newton? Who's Newton?
DOCTOR: Old Isaac? Friend of mine on Earth. He discovered gravity. Well, I say he discovered gravity. I had to give him a bit of a prod.
ROMANA: What did you do?
DOCTOR: Climbed up a tree.
ROMANA: And?
DOCTOR: Dropped an apple on his head.
ROMANA: Ah, and so he discovered gravity.
DOCTOR: No, no, he told me to clear off out of his tree. I explained it to him afterwards at dinner.
ROMANA: There's the TARDIS, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Going in to land.
ROMANA: We'll never make it.

[Outside the engine room]

KIMUS: (to Mula) Wait here.

(He runs over to the Mentiads.)

KIMUS: Pralix. Pralix, what's happening? Where's the Doctor?
PRALIX: I'm concentrating on the Doctor's mind. Do not disturb me.
MENTIAD: We're still too weak to move the door.
KIMUS: K9?
K9: Counter-jamming field increasing slowly.
KIMUS: Good. Good. I'd better get back.

[TARDIS]

DOCTOR: This is the most dangerous manoeuvre the TARDIS has ever attempted. Don't take it personally, old girl, just try and survive. Now, Earth coordinates?
ROMANA: Five eight zero four four, six eight four eight eight four.
DOCTOR: Good. Multiloop stabiliser, synchronic feedback.
ROMANA: Doctor, if we're going to try and materialise at exactly the same point in time and space, how do we know when to do it? It only happened as a fluke the first time.
DOCTOR: That's a good point. Now, listen, Zanak could try to dematerialise at any moment. We've got to be spot on. You'll man the warp oscilloscope and the gravity dilation meter.
ROMANA: Right.
DOCTOR: They'll both peak when Zanak goes into demat and remat mode. Then brace yourself.
ROMANA: Right.

[Bridge]

NURSE: How soon, Captain, how soon? This waiting is intolerable. We must jump. We must jump!
CAPTAIN: We are now ready.
NURSE: Then jump! Jump instantly!
CAPTAIN: Planet Terra, star system Sol. Galactic coordinates five eight oh double four, six eight four double eight four. Surround jump commences in five seconds. Four, three, two

[TARDIS]

ROMANA: Now, Doctor. Dematerialise now!

(Zanak vanishes.)

ROMANA: Doing well so far, Doctor.

[Bridge]

FIBULI: Captain, sir. Captain! There was a slight disturbance in the warp oscilloscope during dematerialisation.
CAPTAIN: Monitor it. Prepare for rematerialisation. Surrounding Terra in five seconds.

[TARDIS]

ROMANA: Rematerialisation commence now.

[Bridge]

CAPTAIN: Mister Fibuli, it's happening again.
NURSE: What is it, Captain?
FIBULI: It must be the Doctor's vessel, Captain, trying to materialise in the same space as us. Every circuit's jamming.

[TARDIS]

ROMANA: It's getting worse. There's no way we can survive this.
DOCTOR: It'll go on getting worse until one of us explodes or the Mentiads raise that door.
ROMANA: What are you doing?
DOCTOR: I'm opening a communications channel.

[Outside the engine room]

DOCTOR [OC]: Pralix? Pralix, can you hear me?
PRALIX: Brothers, the Doctor is trying to reach me. We must concentrate together. It is too faint for me to hear.

[TARDIS]

DOCTOR: Romana?
ROMANA: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Switch off the TARDIS forcefield.
ROMANA: What? But that's madness! It's the only protection we've got.
DOCTOR: I know. Do it.
ROMANA: It's been nice knowing you, Doctor.
DOCTOR: And you.

(Bang! Smoke rises from the time rotor.)

PRALIX [OC]: Doctor, are you there? What's happening?

[Bridge]

FIBULI: Oh, Captain, it's getting worse! We must back off.
NURSE: More power, Captain. More power!

[TARDIS]

DOCTOR: Pralix? Pralix, do you have the strength to raise the door yet?
PRALIX [OC]: No, Doctor. Our minds are so weak we couldn't life anything bigger than a spanner.
DOCTOR: Spanner? Spanner. That's it! A spanner in the works. Pralix, forget the door. Can you project your minds beyond it?
ROMANA: Doctor, the TARDIS is about to explode. It's going to explode!

[Engine room]

DOCTOR [OC]: There, on the floor.

(A large spanner rises off the floor.)

DOCTOR [OC]: Now, follow my movements. Macrovectoid particle analyser. Omnimodular thermacron. There! Megaphoton discharge link.

(The spanner floats through the room to a free standing control unit.)

PRALIX [OC]: What do we do?
DOCTOR [OC]: Hit it.

(Big bang! Then a chain reaction of Bangs! through the engine room and also the Bridge. Nu-Xanxia and the Captain are out cold.)

[TARDIS]

(The Doctor and Romana pick themselves up off the floor.)

DOCTOR: You can never relax for a moment in this job.
ROMANA: We've done it, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Yes, the question is, will we ever be able to do anything else again? Shall we try and materialise?
ROMANA: Yeah.
DOCTOR: Come on.

[Xanxia's throne room]

(The TARDIS parks itself by the time dams.)

ROMANA: Is that her?
DOCTOR: Yes, that's her, the old harpy.
ROMANA: It's a pity we can't just switch her off.
DOCTOR: Yes. Any interference in the time dam field, though, would trigger off an explosion that would blast us off this planet.
ROMANA: Well, what do we do then?
DOCTOR: I think we adapt the Captain's plan.
ROMANA: The Captain's plan?

[Bridge]

CAPTAIN: Mister Fibuli, dead. Dead. He was a good man.

(The Captain takes Fibuli's spectacles.)

NURSE: Pull yourself together, Captain. We can still defeat the rabble out there.
CAPTAIN: Somehow, somehow, Mister Fibuli, my friend, you shall be avenged.

[Trophy room]

DOCTOR: The Captain's trophy room. Well, what do you think?
ROMANA: Incredible. A masterpiece of gravitic geometry.
DOCTOR: Yes, obviously. All the forces cancel each other perfectly, otherwise Poof!
ROMANA: So all that shouting and blustering was just an act to lull Xanxia into a false sense of security while he built this.
DOCTOR: Yes. Let that be a lesson to you, my girl. Never take anything at its face value.

[Bridge]

(The Captain is trying to mend a piece of equipment.)

NURSE: Hurry, Captain, hurry.

[Outside the Bridge]

KIMUS: Oh, it's no use. We can't get it open.
PRALIX: Then we Mentiads must try to open it.
MENTIAD: Brothers, our strength is increasing. It may be possible. Come.

[Trophy room]

DOCTOR: The Captain's plan, we must be able to use it.
ROMANA: But he'll have the controls on the Bridge.
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: Wait a minute. The only way the Captain could destroy Xanxia without blowing himself and this whole mountain to atoms would be to get inside the perimeter of the time dams without disturbing it, right?
DOCTOR: Right.
ROMANA: Which would require astronomic energy sources.
DOCTOR: Here they are, all perfectly balanced out.
ROMANA: So when he has enough of them, all he has to do is alter the balance slightly and create a standing vortex in the middle of the time field, so time starts up at the normal speed and the Queen dies.
DOCTOR: Right.
ROMANA: Brilliant! But I don't see how it helps us.
DOCTOR: And it wouldn't have worked anyway.
ROMANA: Why not? The theory's sound enough.
DOCTOR: Yes, but Calufrax isn't.
ROMANA: Calufrax?
DOCTOR: Is not a normal planet. It's an artificially metricised structure consisting of a substance with a variable atomic weight.
ROMANA: So that means Calufrax, the entire planet
DOCTOR: Is the second segment of the Key to Time.
ROMANA: Of course. No wonder the tracer kept going mad.
DOCTOR: Try it now.
ROMANA: What?
DOCTOR: The tracer. You have still got it?
ROMANA: I thought you had it.
DOCTOR: What?

(The Doctor searches, and finds it in his inside coat pocket.)

DOCTOR: There.
ROMANA: But we can't move that. We can't move anything here. If we do, we'll just upset the whole system and create a gravity whirlpool.
DOCTOR: Not if I do something immensely clever.

[Bridge]

NURSE: Have you done it? Is it ready?
CAPTAIN: Yes, Xanxia. At last I am ready.

(The Bridge door opens.)

NURSE: Captain, look.
CAPTAIN: I shall be free from you, you hag.
NURSE: What are you doing?
DOCTOR: No, Captain, don't! Don't do it! It won't work!

(Nu-Xanxia uses her control box to make the Captain's cybernetic parts go bang!)

NURSE: Die, you fool! Die! And now, Doctor, it's your turn.
DOCTOR: No, please, I can explain everything.
NURSE: No, Doctor. Never again.

(Kimus runs in and shoots her. She vanishes.)

DOCTOR: No one else come in. No one else!
MULA: Are they dead?
DOCTOR: Well, the Captain certainly is, but Xanxia's another matter. You'd all better get out of here. This place is pretty unstable. Get down to the foot of the mountain.
KIMUS: What about you?
DOCTOR: It's all right, I'll follow on later. Off you go.

(The Doctor takes Kimus' weapon, and the Zanakians all leave.)

DOCTOR: Phew. Ah, look, this might be a bit tricky. I want you to go and find K9, take him back to the TARDIS and wait for me there.
ROMANA: What about you?
DOCTOR: Well, I've got a couple of things to do here. Please go. Please go. Go.
ROMANA: All right.

(Romana leaves. The Doctor goes over to the Captain's body.)

DOCTOR: Now, Captain, let me see.

[TARDIS]

(K9 and Romana are already there when a happy Doctor enters. Zanak is on the viewscreen looking like a narrow ring rather than an entire planet that just happens to be hollow..)

ROMANA: What did you do on the Bridge, Doctor?
DOCTOR: You'll never believe it.
ROMANA: Try me.
DOCTOR: All right, I will. I've switched the Captain's circuits around to create a hyperspatial force shield around the shrunken planets, then I put his dematerialisation control into remote mode.
ROMANA: So we can operate them from here.
DOCTOR: Precisely.
ROMANA: But I don't see how that helps.
DOCTOR: What? Well, first I dematerialise the TARDIS, then I make Zanak dematerialise for a millisecond or two, then I invert the gravity field of the hyperspatial forceshield and drop the shrunken planets
ROMANA: Into the hollow centre of Zanak!
DOCTOR: Exactly.
ROMANA: What then?
DOCTOR: Well, I would have thought that was perfectly obvious. They expand in an instant to fill a hollow space and bang.
ROMANA: But what about Calufrax? How do we get hold of Calufrax?
DOCTOR: Well, naturally, Calufrax is flung off into the space time vortex and we pick it up later in the TARDIS.
ROMANA: Well, naturally. Oh, that's quite ingenious.
DOCTOR: Quite ingenious? It's brilliant. It's fantastic!
ROMANA: All right, it's fantastic.
DOCTOR: Fantastic. Right. Here we go then. There.

(The inside of Zanak starts to flicker.)

ROMANA: Congratulations.
DOCTOR: Clever, eh?
ROMANA: Fantastic.
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: But Doctor, haven't you forgotten something?
DOCTOR: Me?
ROMANA: What about the Bridge, and the time dams?
DOCTOR: Bridge and time. K9?
K9: Piece of cake, master. Blow them up.
ROMANA: Oh, isn't that rather crude?
DOCTOR: Oh, it's a bit crude, but immensely satisfying.

[Foot of the mountain]

(The Doctor runs down the last of the slope playing out the last of the detonation wire.)

DOCTOR: Come on, Romana.

(They attach the wire to the plunger box.)

KIMUS: Doctor, when all this is over, will we really be free?
DOCTOR: I don't see why not. It's entirely up to you. You've got to make this world a better place to live in. You've got plenty of material wealth, but there are other things. The other lead, Romana.
ROMANA: I'll do it.
DOCTOR: Thank you. (to Kimus and Mula) Now, I think this is a good place in the universe to settle down. You've got reasonable sun, good neighbours and some quite convenient stars for when you get round to ordinary space travel. I think you're going to be all right here.
ROMANA: Ready, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Good. Next. (the Mentiads) What I want to know is, am I going to blow up that Bridge, or are you?
PRALIX: We will.
DOCTOR: Good. I'll get out of the way while you concentrate.

(With the power of their minds, the Mentiads push down the plunger on the box and the Bridge goes KaBOOM!)

DOCTOR: That was very satisfying. Come on, Romana, we've got a job to do.

Transcript originally provided by Chrissie. Adapted by TARDIS.guide. The transcripts are for educational and entertainment purposes only. All other copyrights property of their respective holders.

Back to top